{"id":115,"date":"2026-05-20T21:10:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T21:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alaskamovingnetwork.com\/?p=115"},"modified":"2026-05-20T21:10:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T21:10:23","slug":"alaska-legislature-passes-sweeping-crime-bill-raising-age-of-consent-to-18-on-last-day-of-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alaskamovingnetwork.com\/?p=115","title":{"rendered":"Alaska Legislature passes sweeping crime bill raising age of consent to 18 on last day of session"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The Alaska Legislature approved a wide-ranging crime bill on Wednesday, the last day of its regular session. The bill includes measures that raise Alaska\u2019s age of sexual consent to 18 and criminalize child sex abuse material generated by artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/alaskamovingnetwork.com\/?p=113\">Alaska\u2019s oldest original lighthouse will soon open to the public for the first time<\/a><\/p>\n<p>House Bill 239 includes elements of 10 separate proposals introduced this year and last year, plus a few new elements. The primary architect of the legislation, Anchorage Democratic Sen. Matt Claman, calls it the \u201cconsolidated public safety bill.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It passed nearly unanimously: 20-0 in the Senate on Tuesday and 39-1 in the House on Wednesday. It includes proposals put forward by members of the House and Senate\u2019s majority and minority caucuses and the governor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt has been a bipartisan effort that includes a number of public safety priorities,\u201d Claman said.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to raising the age of consent and banning AI-generated child sex abuse material, the bill:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Imposes harsher penalties on drivers who leave the scene of a fatal accident<\/li>\n<li>Closes a loophole in laws against sexual assault by a health care worker<\/li>\n<li>Speeds the processing and improves the tracking of sexual assault kits<\/li>\n<li>Creates the crime of mail theft<\/li>\n<li>Imposes criminal penalties on people who sell, install or manufacture counterfeit airbags<\/li>\n<li>Allows Alaskans to request minor marijuana convictions prior to legalization be made confidential<\/li>\n<li>Specifies that tribes can operate state-sanctioned victim counseling centers<\/li>\n<li>Moves an advisory committee on controlled substances to the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development<\/li>\n<li>Makes it a crime to view or create images depicting bestiality<\/li>\n<li>Authorizes the Department of Corrections to release prisoners with permanent or degenerative medical conditions who do not pose a threat to the public.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Sponsors of the <u>various measures included in the bill<\/u> said they were grateful their priorities made the cut, and some said their proposals would likely not have passed otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Andrew Gray, an Anchorage Democrat who has repeatedly pushed to raise the age of consent to 18, said the change would make it easier to prosecute people who sexually assault minors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere&#8217;s nothing that I can think of, nothing that my office will ever do that is as important as what happened today,\u201d Gray said after the bill passed the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Sara Hannan, a Juneau Democrat who proposed closing the loophole in sexual assault laws after a <u>high-profile case against a chiropractor faltered last year<\/u>, said the fact that her bill was included in the package allowed it to move quickly.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/alaskamovingnetwork.com\/?p=111\">A rare Ebola strain is spreading with no vaccine. Here\u2019s what you need to know.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cClosing that on a short timeline was really beneficial,\u201d Hannan said. \u201cI don&#8217;t think my bill would have made it across by itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Sarah Vance, a Homer Republican who pressed for the provisions regarding AI-generated child sex abuse material, said the bill as a whole protects victims of crime.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It tells them that we hear them and we&#8217;re willing to strengthen our laws (to) prevent future crimes and that they will get justice,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>But the way the bill moved through the Legislature \u2014 leaving the House as a one-subject bill on hit-and-runs, and returning only for an up-or-down concurrence vote \u2014 made some lawmakers uncomfortable.<\/p>\n<p>Each of the proposals deserved a more careful look, lawmakers from both parties and both chambers said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is no way to legislate,\u201d said Eagle River Republican Rep. Dan Saddler, who ultimately supported the package. <\/p>\n<p>Rep. Bill Elam, a Soldotna Republican and the only lawmaker to vote no, expressed similar concerns.<\/p>\n<p>But others defended the decision to package the 10 bills. Rep. Andy Josephson estimated that it\u2019d take more than 100 hearings to work through the proposals, all while lawmakers are simultaneously tackling other priorities.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/alaskamovingnetwork.com\/?p=109\">Snag with Seward cruise dock reroutes ships to Whittier<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t do that. There\u2019s no time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>House Bill 239 includes elements of 10 separate proposals introduced this year and last year, plus a few new elements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Alaska Legislature passes sweeping crime bill raising age of consent to 18 on last day of session - Alaska Moving Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/alaskamovingnetwork.com\/?p=115\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Alaska Legislature passes sweeping crime bill raising age of consent to 18 on last day of session - 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